Matthew Pouliot

Strike Zone

Projection Review: Hitters

Here’s the first of two pieces looking at back at my hitting projections and how things ended up. I’ll be doing the top 10 for each position and other notables, starting with the catchers, first basemen, second basemen and third basemen today.

Sanchez was one of my best projections last year -- I had him hitting .278 with 33 homers and he hit .278 with 33 homers -- but not so much this year. I’m not worried about him, though. He was hitting the ball about as hard as anyone, and while his strikeout rate went up some this year, his contact numbers weren’t much different than last season. He should bounce all of the way back, with the obvious caveat that he’s a catcher and catchers do tend to get hurt.

Contreras’s decline was a little more worrisome, given that the power wasn’t as expected even when he was playing well and the total collapse that followed in the second half. He’ll still be in the top five here next year, but that’s hardly a very high standard at this point.

At least Barnes hit those three homers in just 25 at-bats in September. It seemed likely that Barnes would play well enough in a job share this year to let the Dodgers allow Yasmani Grandal to depart in free agency this winter. That’s very much up in the air now, though Grandal has hurt his case in October. I still think Barnes is a starting catcher and probably a pretty good one with his on-base skills and pitch-framing ability, but the Dodgers aren’t a team to settle. I imagine there’s a good chance Barnes ends up with 200 at-bats again.

Not only did Zunino post his highest strikeout rate to date, but his isolated slugging percentage went from .258 in 2017 to .209 this year. It was a disaster of a season, and he provided little reason to think he’ll be much better next year.

One day before Opening Day on March 28, Perez suffered a sprained MCL that was supposed to cost him 4-6 weeks. Incredibly, he ended up with 544 plate appearances anyway, tying Contreras for the major league lead among catchers. It helped that the Royals gave him 30 starts at DH (and two at first base). He tied his career highs in homers and RBI, though he did hit for his lowest average ever.

Alfaro showed an awful lot of growth defensively in his first full season, which is great news for his future. The offense was a mixed bag. He hits the ball really hard, and .262/.324/.407 line is solid enough. On the other hand, his swinging-strike rate was an outrageous 23.8%. No one else in the majors with at least 200 plate appearances came in over 19%. It took a .406 BABIP to get Alfaro his .262 average, and for all of his apparent power, his isolated slugging percentage was just .145. I’ll have him as a top-15 fantasy catcher next year, but I won’t project a breakout.

Bellinger homered on 25.2% of his flyballs as a rookie. This year, he came in at 15.2%, which isn’t all that much better than the league average of 12.7%. He also hit fewer flyballs than as a rookie. On the plus side, his exit velocity was quite good, if a little short of elite. His strikeout rate also dropped some. I suspect he’ll get back to at least 30 homers next year.

In case you didn’t notice, offense was down this year to the tune of 23 points of OPS across the league. So, these projections do tend to skew towards the over even more than usual. Myers’ .763 OPS this year gave him a 109 OPS+ for the Padres. His .792 OPS in 2017 also gave him a 109 OPS+ then.

The only great comp for Davis’s train wreck of a season is Adam Dunn’s 2011, when he hit .159 with 11 homers in 122 games. Dunn bounced back somewhat afterwards, but never to his previous heights (he had OPS+s of 144 and 138 before the disaster and 114, 105 and 115 afterwards). Unlike Dunn, though, Davis was already trending badly before the cliff dive, and he didn’t have the excuse of playing his first year in a new league (Dunn spent eight years in the NL before joining the White Sox in 2011). I could see Davis getting back to .220-30 HR next year, but even that seems optimistic.

Here’s the first of two pieces looking at back at my hitting projections and how things ended up. I’ll be doing the top 10 for each position and other notables, starting with the catchers, first basemen, second basemen and third basemen today.

Sanchez was one of my best projections last year -- I had him hitting .278 with 33 homers and he hit .278 with 33 homers -- but not so much this year. I’m not worried about him, though. He was hitting the ball about as hard as anyone, and while his strikeout rate went up some this year, his contact numbers weren’t much different than last season. He should bounce all of the way back, with the obvious caveat that he’s a catcher and catchers do tend to get hurt.

Contreras’s decline was a little more worrisome, given that the power wasn’t as expected even when he was playing well and the total collapse that followed in the second half. He’ll still be in the top five here next year, but that’s hardly a very high standard at this point.

At least Barnes hit those three homers in just 25 at-bats in September. It seemed likely that Barnes would play well enough in a job share this year to let the Dodgers allow Yasmani Grandal to depart in free agency this winter. That’s very much up in the air now, though Grandal has hurt his case in October. I still think Barnes is a starting catcher and probably a pretty good one with his on-base skills and pitch-framing ability, but the Dodgers aren’t a team to settle. I imagine there’s a good chance Barnes ends up with 200 at-bats again.

Not only did Zunino post his highest strikeout rate to date, but his isolated slugging percentage went from .258 in 2017 to .209 this year. It was a disaster of a season, and he provided little reason to think he’ll be much better next year.

One day before Opening Day on March 28, Perez suffered a sprained MCL that was supposed to cost him 4-6 weeks. Incredibly, he ended up with 544 plate appearances anyway, tying Contreras for the major league lead among catchers. It helped that the Royals gave him 30 starts at DH (and two at first base). He tied his career highs in homers and RBI, though he did hit for his lowest average ever.

Alfaro showed an awful lot of growth defensively in his first full season, which is great news for his future. The offense was a mixed bag. He hits the ball really hard, and .262/.324/.407 line is solid enough. On the other hand, his swinging-strike rate was an outrageous 23.8%. No one else in the majors with at least 200 plate appearances came in over 19%. It took a .406 BABIP to get Alfaro his .262 average, and for all of his apparent power, his isolated slugging percentage was just .145. I’ll have him as a top-15 fantasy catcher next year, but I won’t project a breakout.

Bellinger homered on 25.2% of his flyballs as a rookie. This year, he came in at 15.2%, which isn’t all that much better than the league average of 12.7%. He also hit fewer flyballs than as a rookie. On the plus side, his exit velocity was quite good, if a little short of elite. His strikeout rate also dropped some. I suspect he’ll get back to at least 30 homers next year.

In case you didn’t notice, offense was down this year to the tune of 23 points of OPS across the league. So, these projections do tend to skew towards the over even more than usual. Myers’ .763 OPS this year gave him a 109 OPS+ for the Padres. His .792 OPS in 2017 also gave him a 109 OPS+ then.

The only great comp for Davis’s train wreck of a season is Adam Dunn’s 2011, when he hit .159 with 11 homers in 122 games. Dunn bounced back somewhat afterwards, but never to his previous heights (he had OPS+s of 144 and 138 before the disaster and 114, 105 and 115 afterwards). Unlike Dunn, though, Davis was already trending badly before the cliff dive, and he didn’t have the excuse of playing his first year in a new league (Dunn spent eight years in the NL before joining the White Sox in 2011). I could see Davis getting back to .220-30 HR next year, but even that seems optimistic.

Ramirez’s first 4 ½ months were so good that he could hit .165 with two homers over the final six weeks and still finish as a top-five overall player for fantasy purposes. Ramirez’s home run progression has gotten plenty of attention during his career, but he did something else pretty amazing this season, going from 47 unintentional walks in 2017 to 91 this year.

Odor’s summer surge pushed him up to .271/.348/.478 on Sept. 2. Unfortunately, he had no homers and just one RBI in his final 23 games. The improvement in his plate discipline numbers is still a good sign for the future.

Schoop seemed like a particularly safe pick. ... I didn’t think he’d quite match his 2017 production, but the strong power numbers were close to a lock. However, everything went in the wrong direction. Not only did he hit more grounders, but even when he did hit the ball in the air, he wasn’t hitting it as hard as before. He’s just turning 27, so he should rebound. I want to know where he’ll be playing, though, before I’d recommend him. Milwaukee is a good ballpark for him, but it could be a crowded situation since the club loves to amass depth.

That start was incredible, considering that we’re talking about as 21-year-old second baseman, but Albies hit just .250/.293/.390 over his final 111 games. He’ll be a tough call next spring. It’ll be tempting to rank him as a top-five second baseman, but after watching him the last four months, I’m not sure he’s ready to put it together.

Moncada wasn’t all that bad offensively, but where were the steals? He swiped 49 bases in 81 games in A-ball in 2015 and 46 in 112 games in his last full season in the minors in 2016. I’ll hope for more next year, but I don’t know whether to count on it or not.

This was an extremely low confidence projection after Villar’s performance the previous two years. … I’m surprised how well it turned out. Assuming that he isn’t traded again, Villar will go into next year as a top-10 second baseman, maybe top five. The Orioles will be terrible and have no reason not to give him 650 plate appearances.

It was a lost year for Sano, but he still goes into next year as a 26-year-old with two very good and one solid offensive season already under his belt. Health is a question, even if his conditioning is better now than it has been since he entered the league. That he figures to slip awfully far in drafts next year will make him an interesting get.

Yikes for the Mariners, who still owe $56 million to a player who has gone from seasons of 5.8, 4.3 and 6.9 rWAR to 2.5 in 2017 and 0.8 this year. I don’t know what happened to Seager, but there’s nothing that makes me optimistic about a big turnaround.

But at least Longoria can take solace that the Giants’ nominated him for the Hank Aaron Award as the league’s best hitter. Longoria had a career OPS+ of 128 before coming in at 99 and 89 the last two years.

Davidson gained 59 points of OBP and lost 33 points of slugging from 2018. That’s a good trade, of course, but since he’s a bad defensive third baseman, he’s going to have to get the slugging back up to last in the league.

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